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Outside the window cut into the brick and stone, tall eucalyptus and Ashoka trees were swaying. The ground looked like how it does after good rains in a dirty city -- a thick brown gravy road with Brittannia Good Day (Have a good day! ting ting ti ting!) packets as milestones and once-dry-now-wet leaves surrounding them like travellers eager to note down how many miles they have covered. Inside, she sat, first with both her legs apart and then she remembered somebody telling her that crossed legs send signals of confidence. She imagined rays of light streaming from her thighs to the person sitting opposite. And giggled. The heart had not yet started thumping so light-hearted banter even if it was only with herself, was still possible. What was rather difficult was indeed to cross her legs in that tight jeans and tighter purple kurta, the only decent one she had, despite its little unnoticeable tear near the thigh. Somebody else had told her, no, she had read somewhere that big bags can hide more than a mere fabric tear. They can hide your love handles and unsightly waist bulges as well if you hold them close enough, the article had smugly said.  She didn't agree. She also didn't think the writer of the piece had any love handles herself. Which fool would think that just because there is a big bag sitting on your waist, your waist is smaller? Stupid magazines! And stupid writers! What did they know!

And so she waited, imagining herself as the writer of that piece on big bags. She saw herself wearing her favourite red heels and trotting inside a steel-gray office, throwing her oversized bag on the chair and sitting stylishly on the edge of the table to make small conversation with her colleague. She giggled again and sat up straight; her shoulder blades were not tense at all -- her body was displaying more confidence than she felt. Maybe she would get it right this time.

She turned her attention back to the trees which had now stopped nodding and were expectant just like her; or so she thought. She was idly wondering when was the last time she saw a completely blue sky when they came in. They were not the bad sort; in fact her mind had already decided who they resembled. They were like Mole and Ratty, the mild-mannered doughty looking friends from that children's classic 'The Wind in the Willows'. They made her comfortable; they even asked if she would have tea. "No, no tea, thank you." "Are you sure?" "Yes, yes." (Oh start it now please!)

It was when her hands started moving rapidly up and down, back and forth, the thin bony fingers flailing as if they were trying to catch truant beads falling from a mischievous sky that she realised that she was being spectacularly foolish yet again. She had felt this before and had examined the feeling thread by embarrassed thread. She also had come to a conclusion. Feeling spectacularly foolish, she had concluded, wasn't such a bad thing if that feeling was only known to her. It had happened many times before with her that at the precise moment when she was feeling grandiloquently silly, she would lift her head up and notice a spark of affection or admiration in another's eye. That would amaze her enough to keep her snug for days.

Her troubles, like now, began when she distinctly realised that Mole and Ratty, sleek in their thinking, perfectly worded in their speech, had noticed the spectacularity of her foolishness. It was this signal her heart was waiting for and thump! thump!! Blop! That was already a two-feet fall. She felt it thumping somewhere below her stomach. The  last bit of drama was still left. The little tick next to the down-turned mouth started to twitch. In a swift movement she brought her hands down and laid them straight on her lap. Her fingers felt the purple fabric and began stealthily rolling the edges of her kurta. Her breath came out in short gasps and she spit out what she had to say with her throat constricted and her words like playground hoops -- connected and yet cutting into each other. She was afraid she would be stopped right there and then. She sneaked a glance but Mole and Ratty were only nodding. They even looked faintly interested.

"Is there anything else you would like to know?" Mole leaned forward. "No,that's it for now." she said swiftly. Shit! That was too swift. "Er.. I think" she added. Desperation started welling up from somewhere below the navel. Shut up! No, say something idiot! No shut up! Uff, say something NOW! She finally gave in. "Er..umm.. nice place this." Wan smile from Ratty. "So much greenery around." Wan smile no. 2 from Ratty. Mole looked around as if he was noticing his surroundings for the first time. "Yes yes. Good...Right then." He extended his puffy hands and she took them in hers lightly and mumbled. "Good, Good."

Another interview had come to an end.

It is easier to write about snow in Wales when your back is being warmed up fat slabs of sunshine and you only have to turn slightly to look at a tall oak preening in its new foliage. It has forgotten its own starvation right through the long winter when it knew stoicism was its only hope; my own memories of that emptiness too are getting hazier and romance is applying gloss all over again. For somebody who has grown up in winters that never dipped beyond 15 degrees Celsius, to live through a season that pays such powerful obeisance to the power of white is to comprehend fully why the sun inspires such unbound joy in these colder parts of the world. And why snow doesn’t.

For the tropical soul though, snow is imbued with all the maudlin poetry of the hopeless romantic. You hear its first strains on clear nights; they are gentle swishing sounds and feel much like how it does when you brush your cheek against mom’s oldest and softest cotton saree. They don’t shout for you and yet your feet run to the window. Outside, in a landscape lit with the deepest indigo of twilight, shimmery white stars fall to the earth and vanish at her touch. In a matter of two hours, what were earlier square unimaginative buildings painted slate-grey transform into a vision in starkest white. It makes belief in a higher power remarkably easy. It also makes you empathise with the Impressionists’ fascination with snow.

It shows you what those artists understood instinctively — a snowflake is all the marvel and grandeur of nature tightly stuffed into half a millimetre. By carrying such beauty so lightly, it gives us clues about how we perhaps should take ourselves.

This lightness, alas, is ephemeral. Nothing about snow, much like life itself, is lasting. Neither its purity, nor its contemplative beauty much less its docility. As winter deepens, and the light ebbs away and the trees begin to resemble angry scratches on a child’s hand, snow perceptibly gathers power. Before it arrives in its strengthened form, there is a heightened sense of darkness. The earth looks parched and dull, the trees bare and the sky grey. You wake up to darkness and you sleep in darkness and spring seems like a distant dream.

It is the kind of winter that drips coldness on to your heart and has the power to obscure the very imagination of sunshine. Snow almost seems like a benediction but you quickly realise it is anything but. It first drifts across the landscape but rapidly thickens. And then it settles down. It clots on windows, squats on dustbins and freezes on footpaths. It increasingly begins to look like a corpulent beast that is unconcerned about the ugly lumps of fat all over its body.

Once it has settled down in this fashion, it makes life unbelievably tardy. Everything, it seems, is dictated by this smug beast. To step out of the house is to put on layers and layers of clothing, not to mention gloves, scarves and hats — enough tediousness to put even the most earnest soul off the idea of taking long walks. Not only do such everyday activities like driving, walking and shopping become unwanted adventures, the feeling of being snowed in heightens your emotions and dramatizes everything you hear and see. A mere sad song appears to be full of pathos; a friend’s casual teasing takes on hues of bitter sarcasm and solitude frighteningly begins to resemble loneliness. You begin to fathom the terror and fear that stares out of Turner’s landscapes overrun by snow. Somewhere in the deep recesses of your mind, you also register why often in art and literature snow has always been more about evil and misery than about joy and romance.

Curiously, as snow dies, as it must, it renders its surroundings bleaker than ever. As it begins to melt, it becomes muddier and dirtier and all the more dangerous. Its icy sheen is a mirage designed to make you lose your grip; its long thaw is a time of numbing chills and indeed feels like the foul-smelling last gasp of a dying beast.

And then as suddenly, it’s gone. It’s like waking up from a dream. The buildings are slate-grey again and the footpath and dustbins are no longer white. But there is a patch of blue above. And the first brave snowdrop flowers. You are now convinced that sunshine will come. And so, you fall in love with snow all over again.

This was first uploaded on 'Unboxed Writers', a website for writers who believe in creative freedom and respect. Read it on this website here: http://unboxedwriters.com/2011/05/winter-in-wales/